New Delhi, June 14 -- In his 1945 essay, The Sporting Spirit, George Orwell wrote: "Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness...in other words it is war minus the shooting." While Orwell's musings were about sport's value in a post-World War II Europe, his words strike a nerve 80 years later as we head into the football World Cup.

War is not just an analogy this time. One of the host nations of the 2026 FIFA World Cup (WC), the US, is actively at war with one of the competing teams, Iran-a first in tournament history. The US has tried to apply every bit of diplomatic pressure to make life difficult for Iran at the World Cup. Iran had to shift their training base from the US to Tiju...